[OPEN] I have never known peace

[ragweed]

WHO: Kit + you??
WHAT: Kit does what he can to help out the Inquisition during blue flu season, and reconnects with some friends (and lovers) along the way.
WHEN: Throughout February.
WHERE: Gallows + Kirkwall
NOTES:This will be Kit's last log before he goes out in a blaze of glory at the end of the month, so if you'd like one last thread with him, ping me @ ragweed on plurk or on discord and we can make it happen. Starters will be in the comments as I write them up. CW for death and violence in Kit's thread w/ the Medicine Seller.

I have never known hunger
Like these insects that feast on me

Comments

ANDERS

[ragweed]

a thousand teeth; and yours among them, I know


It's as typical a night at the Darktown clinic as one can expect, given the events transpiring in the Gallows. Kit's been run ragged, both by his added obligations at work, and by keeping a certain blue rifter from seeking out every damned demon that Kirkwall has on offer. But his friend seems to have reached a stage where he doesn't need an anxious dwarf hovering around him making sure he doesn't make terrible decisions--and so he's here, putting in a hand to help Anders out around the clinic.

He's got a cigarette tucked between his lips and is sorting through a selection of packaged herbs. "You don't suppose the cure's secretly in one of these, do you?" he asks his friend, glancing over his shoulder, and smiles lopsidedly. Yeah, no, he knows it isn't, he's just being a shit because what other options does he have?

[justice_is_blond]

He huffs in tired almost-laughter.

"Did I tell you I tried an herbal remedy on a Rifter? Something meant to cleanse the body? Fully informed, of course, on how it might backfire... and it did." Anders comes over to the desk and leans against it, looking down at what Kit's going through while trying to keep his tone light. "I've cured so many things before. This... Maker."

There's a lot of stress on his shoulders, but thankfully he's not the only one working on matters. He just wishes someone would figure out whatever it is they're missing soon.

"I'd try nearly anything at this point." He picks up one of the bandages that's come unrolled and starts re-doing it, glad of the brainless way to keep his hands occupied.

[ragweed]

"Shit," Kit swears sympathetically, as only he can, and raises his eyebrows. "Hope the backfire wasn't too, uh. Explosive." He mimes that part for added effect.

He doesn't miss the note of mild desperation in Anders' voice at that last part, however. Glancing up at his friend, he frowns, then gently nudges him with an elbow. "You're doing the best that any of us can do, all things considered. Go easy on yourself, salroka. You're just one man."

VANDELIN

[ragweed]

we lay here for years or for hours; thrown here or found, to freeze or to thaw


It's work that brings him to Vandelin's office door--and it is his office now, what with the condition the rest of his division is in at present. There are work orders sorted neatly into a folder he's got tucked under one arm, things for someone within the diplomacy division to sign off on; the regular workings of the Inquisition must go on, after all.

Still. Standing here makes his heart lurch, as it ever did, at the prospect of seeing Vandelin's face. So he takes a steadying breath and knocks.

"Vandelin? It's Kit."

No point in catching him completely unawares like last time.

[misdirection_hex]

Kit's courtesy there does not go unnoticed, nor unappreciated. The rest of the world has been flinging things at his head with no warning for weeks now, it feels like, and the plague has forced everyone to get used to unpredictability and adapt, but being granted one small opportunity to reinforce his guard is a blessing. Kit always knew that about him, even if Kit's the reason he needs it now.

"Come in," he calls, after allowing himself a second's pause. He doesn't think Kit will begrudge him that, either. Even now, Vandelin still has a half-conscious, implicit trust in him.

[ragweed]

The pause is useful to both of them. Kit closes his eyes and takes a steadying breath. Then, "Come in," and he opens the door.

It's funny how things do manage to stay exactly the same even as they change. On the threshold to Vandelin's office, Kit pauses out of habit (and maybe necessity, these encounters have never been his strong suit), then steps inside and over to his desk. "Just some work orders from Scouting division that need someone to sign off on them," he says and offers out the folder to Vandelin. He lets himself meet his former lover's eyes then, hesitation in his own gaze for a moment. The concern follows shortly.

He never could help himself.

"You all right?" he asks gently.

NARI

[ragweed]

so long we become the flowers; two corpses we were, two corpses I saw


Look, if he doesn't go back to his house sometimes, then Chuck is going to move back in and he's going to have more problems.

Taking advantage of a very brief respite from his duties at the Gallows, Kit is back in his hovel just beyond the reaches of Darktown, cleaning some old bits of soot and ash out of his wood stove. Over the months, the place has grown a touch of personality; the small charms and totems Melys gave him sit on rickety old shelves or dangle in front of windows; the plant that Vandelin gifted him early on has been moved away from the window to keep it from freezing to death, and while it has grown dormant, there's still some green in its twigs and branches. It'll survive the winter yet.

(The Medicine Seller's influence is clear in the colourful silks and fabrics left to drape across the old wood furniture, though given the state of his... friend... he hasn't been by in a while. Kit tries to tell himself that he doesn't miss him much. ...Or Vandelin. Emotions are complicated.)

The kettle has started to boil; dusting ash off his hands, he straightens up to tend to it.

[nadasharillen]

As Kit gets up there's a knock at the door and Nari's voice, muffled and tired, through the wood. She sounds markedly better than she had the last time he'd heard her, however.

"Kit? Are you in?"

[ragweed]

The knock sounds muffled because he's got his left ear turned towards the door. Still, he hears it, glances her way, and then ambles over to pull the door open.

"Hey," he greets her with a wide smile, pleased to see her upright and, you know, alive. "You're looking a damn sight better than the last time I saw you." He steps aside to let her in.

CADE + BENE

[ragweed]

i have never known sleep, like the slumber that creeps to me


i. Cade (+Simon if you want to jump in)

Whatever is ailing the rifters and Templars of the Inquisition means that it's affecting his friends, and this means that in between his duties, Kit tries to make time to check on them. (One he already has to wrangle more than the others, but he counts Cade and Simon among his friends.

He arrives outside their door with a covered pot of something that is probably nug stew--he's a one-trick bronto in the kitchen, okay?--and knocks. "Hey, anyone home?" Just kidding, he knows you're home, now open up.


ii. Benedict

Kit gave the boy some time to settle back in at the Gallows after his harrowing experience with the ship--and a second attempt on his life--before coming back to call on him. Whoever is guarding his door this time (not a Templar, for obvious reasons) must be used to the dwarf's comings and goings, because they exchange a little small-talk before Kit knocks and announces himself, and only enters once Benedict welcomes him in.

"How're you holding up?" No need to pretend that the Gallows around them aren't going a bit to shit at present.

i

[onlyhymns]

Cade has been too nervous and timid to even leave the room he shares with Simon, even though the latter comes and goes with varying degrees of lucidity. Kit receives the usual response to someone knocking on the door with a loud greeting: loaded silence, the holding of fearful breath.

[ragweed]

A pause. ...huh.

"It's, uh. It's Kit," he adds helpfully.

ii

[altusimperius]

Each time there's a crisis, Benedict feels a little more comfortable back in the safety of his own quarters, no matter how bland and dour they are. He's at his writing desk by the window, head resting on his hand, when he hears the door open and looks over his shoulder to see Kit.
By this point, the dwarf has become a welcome sight, and Benedict smiles, almost sheepishly. "Fine," he answers, "not dead."

[ragweed]

"I'd say that's better than the alternative, sure." Kit cracks a grin and comes all the way in, shuts the door behind him, and makes his way over to the writing desk. He tugs over a chair and, as is his custom, tosses down a deck of cards for Benedict to shuffle and deal.

"I hope that prick--" Loki, Kit reminds himself, that prick has a name, "--hasn't given you any more trouble."

THE MEDICINE SELLER (CW: VIOLENCE & DEATH)

[ragweed]

after the insects have made their claim; after the foxes have known our taste, i'd be home with you


It's a rare night when Kit makes his way home through Darktown that he isn't accosted in some way--by a stumbling drunk, a pickpocket who needs to be taught just to ask first, salroka, and you'll get what you want, or some local toughs who think a dwarf on his own is an easy mark. (They're always mistaken.) It's happened less and less in recent months, the more he's developed a bit of a street level reputation for being the one to go to for help when the Carta or Coterie come knocking. Maybe it's less that Inquisition dwarf and a rifter that they're after, this time, than the Dead Skull and the Painted Elf.

When it happens, it happens very quickly.

They come at Kit from the left, which he doesn't hear, wouldn't have heard even if he hadn't been looking to his right, to the Medicine Seller, and the three Coterie toughs who have chosen to descend on his friend instead.

Kit has just enough time to snap, "Look out--!" when something firm and hard connects with his side, below the ribcage, with enough force to send him staggering. Kit throws out a hand to catch himself against one of the walls of the mineshaft, but his response time it strangely slow, and there's a new pain blossoming in his abdomen that is explained when he looks down and finds the hilt of a mean-looking dagger thrust deep into the meat of his stomach.

The person wielding it is still holding onto the hilt, too, and has a tight enough grip to give it a rough, vicious twist before yanking it out, along with a gout of blood.

It's a horrific injury, enough to fell your average warrior. Not a Legionnaire, though, which explains why Kit is able to seize his assailant by the front of his shirt and headbutt him with enough force to level a bronto, before he goes to his knees, unable to stand any longer.

(OOC: takes place after conclusion of modplot!)

[meds4sale]

These attacks were tiresome - to the point they had become almost routine. It's not as though he and Kit went looking for trouble - at least not with the Carta or Coterie. But it always seemed to find them.

He was busy fending off one particularly annoyed thug, either dancing around him or warding off blows with his sheathed sword that he never seemed to draw. He didn't pay Kit too much mind - the dwarf was a skilled fighter and had, more often than not, been perfectly fine defending himself.


He smelled the blood before he saw it.


When he turned, he saw the arc of red as the knife was pulled out of Kits stomach and the noise that ripped from his throat couldn't even begin to be called human. The accompanying blow of pure energy knocked their assailants off their feet and onto the floor as the Medicine Seller quickly closed the distance between him and Kit, hauling him to his feet.

"The clinic," he said, voice hoarse, expression strained, "There's still time."

He left in his wake a small lantern which, by the time their attackers got up, would start emitting thick clouds of smoke and blinding flashes of light.

[ragweed]

The energy would knock Kit to his knees if he weren't already there, blinking dazedly and with growing confusion as the front of his tunic blossoms red and wet under his hand. He has enough presence of mind to press his palm against the injury, but it's deep and ragged, and already his fingers are wet with something other than blood.

Sod it all, the fucker had near disemboweled him--

"Fuck--!" he groans roughly, unable to keep the sound in when the Medicine Seller tries to haul him upright. Instinct has him rip his hands away from his injury to seize hold of his friend's shoulders, leaving smears of blood across the fine fabric, such a shame to do that, it looked so nice--

"No, no magic," he blurts out, and it's getting harder to think clearly all of a sudden. "Kusuriuri," but he remembers that name, "no, just--" Just let me go, he could say. Maybe it would be true.

(The blood loss probably has something to do with that.)

Late in the mod!flu plot

[overharrowed]

Julius looks tired. Unlike the templars and the rifters, he can sleep just fine when he tries, but he's been pushing himself to try to help solve two unrelated but urgent problems, and he feels increasingly as if he's doing nothing but fail each day. He counts a few rifters as friends, and more than a few of the mages affected by whatever's going on there, and it's all... a lot.

It's late, and he's found a quite spot on the ramparts. He knows he needs rest, and he'll go in shortly, but he can't bring himself to just yet.

Maybe he should have stayed in Antiva, he thinks, treacherously. It's not like he's helping here.

[ragweed]

It is, most assuredly, a lot.

Kit's heavy footsteps probably announce him long before the sound of him striking a match and lighting his cigarette does. He comes to stand next to Julius on the ramparts and looks out across them wordlessly, watching the rest of Kirkwall as it turns in for the night--or turns out. Depends on where you are, after all; Darktown never sleeps. He'd know.

"Want a smoke?" This he offers to Julius with an unlit cigarette in hand.

[overharrowed]

He laughs, quietly. "...sure. Maker, it's been years since I smoked, but if there was ever a time." He takes the unlit cigarette, leaning against the wall a bit.

"How've you and your people been holding up? I feel like it's been an age since I saw you last, what with..." He gestures vaguely, encompassing the Gallows and generally all of this.

shortly after quarantine announcement

[aforethought]

It takes a while to find him, but she does, bag slung over a shoulder and dressed to travel —

Which is to say: Light. In her clothes, in her step; there's no brass rattle of persona above the thin draw of her mouth, the shutter of her eyes against a rare bit of winter sun.

"You look like shit," And hello to you, too. "C'mon, we've got to talk."

She doesn't pause for him to follow.

[ragweed]

That's one way to get a dwarf's attention. Whatever else Kit is doing, it can wait. He takes a drag of the cigarette he is undoubtedly smoking and follows after her.

The state of her clothes, that bag--she's clearly on her way somewhere.

"You look like you're on your way out," he says, bluntly but not unkindly. There's no point in beating around the bush about it.

[aforethought]

"Better now’n when they try and force it."

She’s not so piss at reading that she can’t eyeball a list. It’s more than half mages on top now, and that means someone who might stand half a chance at stopping her.

"Y'ever reckon it's time you got moving too?"

[keenly]

"Ser?"

The polite tone belongs to a young man standing in the doorway of Kit's office. He's holding a small book and some papers.

"This is Other Powers, isn't it? I've something what might be interesting to you."

[ragweed]

The dwarf seated behind his desk has reams of paperwork scattered across the tabletop in front of him, and his eyes are not on it. They're gazing out the nearby open window instead, which lets in the cold but also lets out the smoke from the lit cigarette he holds between two fingers.

When the door opens, he glances towards the unfamiliar face who looks in at him, his expression oddly distant, even grave. Then he comes back to himself, cracking a lopsided smile. "Hey. Yeah, you're in the right place," he says and waves him on in. "What've you got for me?"